Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Hard Core 5e Test

Imo the quarterstaff's special ability should be more of a stunning bash than a trip. Maybe polearms could have the trip ability.

Does the quarterstaff's Trip ability also do damage? If so, then it's a fine special ability. It's similar to the Battlemaster's Trip Attack.
If not, then yes everyone should be able to trip (shove prone). It'd be great if Larian implemented an option to Shove Away or Shove Prone.

Cleave is fine. No one can cleave by default; it requires a class ability or feat (e.g., GWM). And even then they're not exactly the same ability, so a weapon's "Cleave" ability will stack with GWM's cleave-like ability.

There is no reason that a particular attack even cleave, should be tied to a particular weapon. It's an unnecessary deviation from 5E that serves little purpose; there's no reason that a character shouldn't be able to make a cleave attack with any melee weapon.

We can certainly hope they DO implement various options for how the game plays and rulesets work. Core rule options, and option for a more advanced reaction system and such.... would be divine.

Eh, at the very least cleave should be restricted to slashing weapons. You can't really cleave with a spear or a quarterstaff, given the former is stabbed into a single enemy and the latter deals damage with the force of a blow directly on an enemy. You can't realistically extend those to multiple enemies unless you take multiple swings/stabs.

And it does serve a purpose: giving weapons cool, flavorful, and importantly limited usage/small effect abilities. Of all of Larian's homebrew, this is one of the best in terms of coolness-to-OPness ratio.

Coolness is fine; but make the characters cool, not the weapons. Most of Larian's homebrew is about taking cool things that maybe a character could do and instead baking it into an item.

Characters in general cannot cleave in 5e. The only one who can is a Hunter Ranger who took Horde Breaker, but they can still do that in BG3. Thus, Larian isn't taking anything away from the characters.

Are you arguing that Larian should instead add a "Cleave" feat and/or ability to the Fighter class? I'm not opposed to such a change in principle, but then we'd run into balance problems that I don't trust Larian to do properly. If the Cleave feat was usable 1x per short rest, it'd be a waste of a feat. If it was usable every turn, it'd be way too powerful.

There's no cleaving in 5e outside of the GWM feat. Well, there was an optional rule in the DMG iirc but I've never heard of anybody using it.

That's the point, they are attaching skills to weapons, and further devaluing melee classes. It's why you can roll dwarven mage, sack intelligence stack strength, and grab the headband of intellect, and now you have a mage, a non-melee class that can pick up a greatsword and cleave just from equipping the weapon.

It's in the same vein as allowing any class to cast spells from scrolls. It devalues the concept of individual classes that DnD is built around.

It's definitely not in the same vein as scrolls. Universal scroll usage has taken a class-exclusive feature and given it to all classes. Whereas weapon's Cleave, Smash, and Charge are not class exclusive abilities (except for the single instance of Horde Breaker). They're also extremely limited usage whereas scrolls usage is unlimited.

Plus, these weapon abilities are really only useful to martial characters. Are you really going to run up in melee with your wizard to use it's Topple ability? I don't think I've ever done that. If anything, these weapon abilities enhance melee classes because these are the only classes that will use them.

I know cleave isn't an existing thing in 5e - it's Larian homebrew. I don't have an issue with what they're letting character's do, it's how they do it.

The special weapon attacks totally feel like something a battlemaster fighter or maybe a kensei monk could already do. So make it a class feature of fighters (or a subclass, or all martial classes) that they can do fancy moves based on the weapon they're wielding. It could either be limited (once per encounter or long rest or something) or be unlimited with a tradeoff (this attack does less/no damage, but also knocks the target back 5 feet). There are ways to implement homebrew rules that make a character feel special because their skills allow them to do a cool thing that most people can't. But if everyone can do anything so long as they pick up the right item, what's the point of characters having classes and strengths and weaknesses?

So basically add these weapon abilities to the list of Battlemaster maneuvers? That list already has trip, and most maneuvers are already Smashing because they deal the extra superiority die damage, so we'd be adding Cleave and Charge.

At some point we have to draw a line between class skills and general/equipment skills, because if you go far enough ~everything could be a class skill. E.g., Shove. One could argue that only martial characters should be able to shove, as only martial characters have trained in melee combat to make such an attempt without it utterly failing or opening themselves up to counterattack. I think that these limited-use weapon abilities lie closer to Shove than to class-defining abilities like casting spells, sneak attack, or bonus action dashing.
But I see your point. It is a somewhat magical/supernatural ability given by the weapon, instead of an ability given by training/class. I just think it's not offensive enough to warrant removing.

Good discussion on weapons skills, I hope they read.

I agree that skills should be attached to characters, not weapons. Different weapons could unlock or improve certain moves, but since these were done to give martial classes something interesting to do perhaps Wizards shouldn't know how to Cleave or Pinning Shot by default. If you want to learn fighting techniques, multiclass into a martial class. I don't think Larian fully understands the class system here, or the purpose to multiclassing to gain combat feats or abilities like Scroll use.

Personally, I don't like the arbitrary restriction of once per encounter on skills that seem like basic combat moves like Topple. Unless they also include the option to Shove prone. Spears, Pikes and Glaives should be able to Topple just like Quarterstaff, so perhaps certain weapons should have more uses than one.

Generally, I like the 3.x way of doing things, where you can do Knockdown, Disarm or even Whirlwind attacks as much as you want. They are situational abilities that come with a downside. It's more of a consideration when to use them rather than always doing them once in every encounter. Much more interesting from a tactical point of view.

It is in the same vein as a change or addition of a rule, that devalues a class. A wizard should not be able to use a skill like 'cleave' just for equipping a sword. All that it does is create broken builds, like the dwarf mage running around in full plate who is a better melee fighter than an actual fighter, and can still use fighter skills like cleave and such just for equipping the weapon.

Relegating "trip" to a staff-specific skill is beyond moronic on Larian's plart.

Fair points. Ignoring trip (everyone should be able to do this), it doesn't really make sense that you can only cleave/charge/bash/pin down a limited number of times.

Perhaps a compromise is that the weapon skills (I still like certain skills being tied to certain weapons: you can't cleave with a rapier or inflict bleeding with a club) have unlimited uses, but they have a negative effect.
-Cleave, Pin Down, and Bash attacks are made at disadvantage. Bash is turned into a "Sunder Armor" reducing the enemy AC by 2 for a turn instead of dealing extra damage
-Charge results in all attacks against you have advantage for a turn
This makes them more situational and interferes less with class skills, as the class skills/feats allow you to do the above things without the negative effect.

What if, as @1varangian suggested, these weapon skill were limited to martial classes?

What if you are already attacking with Disadvantage because of Bane or Blindness or something? Special attacks should be turned off that point or they would be essentially free.

Anyway, Larian isn't going to implement something that will make players miss more often since they are already struggling with it. The effects could be strong enough to still be situationally and tactically worth it, so hopefully they would at least consider something. Pin Down is already so weak it's effect is almost undetectable. If you succeed in something that can only be used once, or comes with a penalty, it should actually do something when it lands.

It would be an improvement on the current system, but still not very good. Why should a fighter have to equip a sub-optimal weapon like a staff, just to make a trip attack?

No one is arguing this. Pretty much everyone agrees that Shove Prone should be an option freely available to everyone in addition to Shove Away, per 5e rules.
But dealing damage + tripping? That's different and it makes more sense to restrict that to weapons most suited for it: quarterstaffs, spears, etc..
They could make it like GWM and cause a -5 instead of disadvantage. Though I prefer your idea of turning them off at that point.

But true, it is unlikely that Larian will implement additional sources of disadvantage for basic-like attacks. I agree that Pin Down should be stronger for being a once-per-short-rest ability, as should Bash.

GWM is actually a great reference for them to work with and expand on since it's already in the game. Cleave &co could easily follow that design pattern.

It's a much more D&D thing to do to counter the attack penalties by casting Bless on your Fighter, and letting them loose at the enemy to Cleave and Bash as much as they like.

The only thing I don't like about this is that GWM is an entire feat. So these weapon-abilities shouldn't be nearly as powerful as it; otherwise I definitely agree that they should be class abilities.

But Cleave: -5 to hit in exchange for making 2, maybe 3 attacks, seems roughly balanced. It will work out to a very situational ability that, on average, only grants slightly more damage when used.
GWM deals a lot more damage to a single target and also allows bonus action attacks, so is still much more powerful.

OK. Beat the Hag's lair. I didn't even stealth it. I did use Potions of Speed, but no Long Rest beforehand. No Magic Missiles either to kill the dupes. Just raw attack strength with a Cleric, Battlemaster, Ranger and Eldritch Knight with two familiars. Used 5e rules, though I will confess it gets pretty hard to determine if I'm hitting from behind or not or from raised terrain. I probably was. Still, I only used potions as Actions and tried to keep to the Hard Core 5e rules, and I could still beat her at Level 3. It can be done.

I will also confess, my first time through, though, failed utterly. It took me 2 tries.